HASSAN FATHY

Beyond the Nile

ARTICLE BY

Gu i llerm o Malue n da &

Fel ipe P i ch-Ag u i lera

That there is a Mediterranean culture and that events at one end of the basin can have reverberations at the other end is bome out by this tribute from a Spanish architect to Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy. Guillermo Maluenda met and spoke at length with Fathy in Egypt bifore determining to write this piece, with Felipe Pich-Aguilera, principally to further debate among their Spanish and Catalonian colleagues. Their attempt at introducing Fathy's philosophy and experience into a new aitical approach to architecture in their own country has relevance for other developing societies. - Editors

hat times these are. Times of confu­SIon and disen­chantment. I do not know what you think, but ev­

ery time I try to form an opinion about our indigent, yet endearing, architectonic present and adopt a criterion, I am over­come with a sensation of dissatisfaction; it is similar to the feeling I have after a lively party as I contemplate the disorder of an empty room and I go home sleepy and empty inside, with only the rumour in me of what the night was like.

We are immersed in a sovereign chaos and we form part of it, with all of the fascination and disarray that this cir­cumstance produces. We move among scores of criteria, we weigh infinite possi­bilities where all of them are valid but' where not a single one is certain.

We tend to doubt to an extent that is excessive and our opinions are always relative; individualism and loneliness. Nonetheless, it is a moment of reflection and criticism. Of judging the dizzy race towards modernism and reviewing sin­cere and I deep-seated attitudes amidst the euphoria, were scarcely kept in mind.

Above all, it is the time to avoid etylic dis control - now that the orchestra has ceased to play - exemplified by those who, covered with confetti, continue to dance, attempting to convince them­selves that the party is not over.

Beyond the Realm of D i scourse When the pragmatic rationalism of the first years gave way to the following gen­erations of the modernist movement, the latter started out upon different paths, all

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stemming from those highly schematic dogmas that great masters had be­queathed to them.

It is my understanding that the major­ity of these paths eventually led nowhere, or else led to an extremist position with respect to the spirit and the postulates of primitive rationalism, without affording an enrichment of essential matters (or at least this was the common denominator of the attitudes of those who considered themselves to be the immediate inheritors of rationalism).

This would explain why many of these attitudes, seen from the vantage point of the present, appear to us to be somewhat naive, and naivety and sim­plicity can only be forgiven when they are associated with novelty and vangar­dis tic concepts. Thus, once the inertia of those beginnings was overcome, the modernist movement (understood exclu­sively as an evolution or rationalism) was lacking in new values, and entered into a period of crisis, or rather, it never ceased to be in a permanent state of crisis as regards its followers or those who proc­laim to be its followers; they never ques­tioned the revision or validity of those primitive postulates that had had such an impact on them.

Now that the myths have been cast aside, we question with impunity those initial dogmas, and we have suffered dis­enchantment and disillusionment upon realizing that what we thought to be cer­tain was also quite relative. The few truths that remain intact had reached us from the masters of the first generation, and those truths are slipping through our fingers, like water slipping through the hands of a person dying of thirst.

With today's perspective, other inter­pretations of the rationalist seed appear much more suggestive; they tend to in­corporate new reflections, such as tradi­tion, handicraft work, vernacular trends, the surrounding environment, primary materials ... ; these are interpretations that in their day were considered to be step­ping-stones that led away from mod­ernist canons. These are the paths that most closely approached present-day reality, reflections of sages that knew how to swim against the current and foresee the real problems in the rnidst of the euphoria of those years.

Perhaps it is for this reason that today we are attracted to the architecture of Sert, Coderch, Barragan, Erskine, prom­inent figures who were more in line with the times than they were with the stylistic moment in which they found themselves and thus, paradoxically, they proved to be "more modem".

It is in this context that the personality and the work of HASSAN FATHY can be inserted; he is perhaps one of the archi­tects who most genuinely represents this philosophy. A mixture of humility and grandeur.

Humani s m and Urb ani s m "In India", notes Fathy, "some villages were provided with running water but such an innovation was not too popular. The young girls preferred to continue to go to the river to fill their heavy jars and to carry them upon their heads. This was the only way to go out and to be seen by the village's young men. They knew that a long stay at home using tap water would surely mean not getting married.

"In the rural societies, we can often see how the rigid and out-dated customs served a lot of unexpected and practical purposes.

"Where a meaningful aspect of tradi­tion is eliminated, it is necessary to re­place it with another one that satisfies the same social function. For example, if the communal centre of water supply is eli­minated, it is necessary to provide other

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means that must be able to facilitate social compromises and communication, no matter how trivial they may seem."

Hassan Fathy reinstituted the Ham­mam (Turkish bath) in New Gouma vil­lage after having done away with the women's walk to the well for water.

New Gourn a "A shoemaker can do his best to try to satisfy his client, taking careful measure­ments of his foot and having the shoe conform as much as possible to that foot; or he might pretend to work like an army supply officer that is concerned with stan­dardising production so as to produce only one size of boot, whereby the wear­er's foot must adapt to this standard size.

"I was confronted with this option in New Gouma. A living society with all of its complexity was before me. I had two choices: to build houses combining sever­al patterns, forcing the inhabitants to feel the same discomforts of the soldier with new boots, or to create a village that would conform to the peculiarities of its inhabitants; a process similar to that of taking a snail out if its shell and putting it into a new habitat."

Old Gouma was not really a very good example of urban development; nevertheless for the observer, it was easy to distinguish the five tribes living in four well-defined settlements. Hassan Fathy planned the new habitat or settlement in New Gouma keeping this social orga­nisation as the main premise and having it conform to the climatic and landscape factors, which are peculiar to any project.

Fathy himself said: "I wanted to save the abysm between those two architec­tures using common features and where village-dwellers could find a familiar point of reference that would make them able to enhance their perception of the new situations. Such factors can be used by the architect as a sign of truth of his own work for the people and the place. "

Through this obvious and basic con­sideration, arises the kind of city that con­forms to people and their culture. If this

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premise is not considered sufficiently, we can be sure that the final result will be far from something that is really adapted to the inhabitants' needs.

These reflections served as the basis for the development by Hassan Fathy of the project for New Gouma.

The Co mmit ment New Gouma was an attempt on the part of the Egyptian government to provide shelter to 7000 villagers. Until then, they had live nearby in Old Gouma, con­structed on ancient ruins. Their principal occupation consisted in desecrating the site and selling the antiquities extracted in

that area. The location of the new settle­ment was carefully chosen by members of the Department of Antiquities, the Mayor of Go urn a, sheiks of the five tribal settlements, and Hassan Fathy. The land had to be far enough from places of artis­tic or historical merit to avoid further desecrations. In the final analysis, they decided on a cultivated tract located near the main road and the railway.

"It seems really attractive to plan a complete village, but it must be said that it was a bit intimidating to find oneself confronted with a stretch of desert of 23

Ha. and 7000 Gournies ready to start a new life there. All of them were joined together by virtue of a complex network of blood and marital relations. This, together with their customs and taboos, their friendships and their disputes, a so­

cial organism delicately balanced, in­

timately integrated into the topography, to every wall and beam of the village. The whole society was going to be dis­mantled and reassembled in a neW" place," recalls Fathy.

To receive such a large commission is

not easy in architecture. And especially if

it comes with total freedom to act. As a result of the opportunity afforded by this project, Hassan Fathy attempted to set the guidelines for defining a national programme for rural reconstruction us­

ing New Gouma as the pilot project. He

pursued as the main objective an under-

standing of the individual and in particu­lar that of the Goumi villager closely tied to his traditional values.

Fathy is well aware of the enormous distance that separates the dweller and the architect. Certainly the figure of the architect is a kind of imposition for vil­lage dwellers, and historically, the latter's traditions in building are hardly taken into account.

Fathy makes a great effort to reduce this distance, by studying their habits, providing the different environmental factors, the streets, the houses ...

In this fetid village of congested and bad-smelling houses where the bureauc­rat, the spectator, the contractor and sure­ly most bf us are not able to see more than a dunghill, Fathy discovers logical and even poignant expressions of man and his social organisation.

The character of a barracks, or a house, whatever it is with their own forms, colours, folklore, etc., has in itself architectonic character. He realises how certain forms that are specially appreci­ated in a community, are employed in a myriad of variations. Developing an ori­ginal, splendid language that can be fitted into the character and the land.

From this slow and friendly approach to the user, ideas are arrived at with naturalness, where each formal and func­tional feature that will constitute the vil­lage are like· housing typologies, with suburbs and street images and at last the conception of the city.

The primary unit for forming a grouping is in New Gouma the Badana. A Badana is a unit comprising a group of people bound by strong ties; it is com­prised of 10 to 20 families. A patriarch is recognised by all of them and towards him and towards the entire group there is a strong sense of loyalty.

The economic situation of families can be different but all of them share a com­munal life. Natural forces transform the desert into a hostile place so the typology used by Fathy is closed to the external environment. For this reason this kind of

HASSAN FATHY

Master plan implementation.

New Gouma: "Mechanics, upon the death of symmetry".

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I , I

I l ----', L----___ --i

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settlement in violent climates grows firm, consisting of the houses forming an almost monolithic body. All of them are open to the interior courtyard that is directly connected to the porch and to the Iwan. Houses belonging to the same Badana form a group surrounding a small square where their facades have an im­portant sustaining mission. So we can say that the square for the Badana is similar to that of a courtyard for the private dwell­ing. This process permits us to sort out consecutive spaces; from the porch to the courtyard, passing through the Badana square, and finally reaching the street; so transition from interior to exterior is gra­dually produced, permitting a better har­mony with the individual when he emerges from his private ambience to the public one.

Our architecture normally uses land­scape as an enriching element in the de­sign of interiors; desert countries achieve this interior-exterior dialogue through the sky; the sky and what it represents (serenity, spirituality, etc) reach the house through the courtyard so intensely that the piece of sky which can be viewed from it is considered as a part of the house and in the same way belonging to the inhabitants.

"This breathable ambience is in fact a fundamental architectural component; if a space is not really rich by its own merit, no dressing added later will make it more natural inside the desired tradition".

Streets in New Gouma are walkable (Gournies cannot afford to buy vehicles). All of them are set out in branch-work fashion and at the crossing are located in different ways the Badanas (basic units of the composition) so the wholeness loses its monotony and rigidity; this way of building up the city reminds us of blue­prints for villages in the Middle Ages. The heart of the city is represented by social activities: the Mosque, the theatre, the gynmasium and the building dedicated to exhibiting handicrafts. However, the market is placed close to the railway sta­tion and the school near the artificial lake.

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All these buildings reflect a great richness and simplicity at the same time. Fathy was accustomed to emphasising what is valid and admirable in local forms, mak­ing the villager proud of his creation.

"Modernism does not necessarily mean vitality nor do changes always im­ply advancement".

"Tradition for villagers is the only safeguard of their culture. They are not able to distinguish between unknown styles and if they leave the way of tradi­tion they will irresistibly crumble. To cut consciously a tradition in a society which is basically traditionalist as the rural is, represents an assault of such a culture and the architect must respect the tradition that prevails".

New Gouma, like other great projects promoted by the government, suffered some alterations during its execution: The supply of materials, which was being done through the govemment, was notably shortened and wages for workers underwent a dangerous delay. All of these circumstances had an adverse effect on the pace of the work and created a hostile environment among people working there. Gouma sheiks utilised this situation to undermine the project's prestige because their interests were still tied to the sale of antiquities unearthed from beneath their present dwellings. Cooperativist proposals fostered by Has­san Fathy fell through, and the roofing technique using mud bricks proved to be unacceptable. Assertions were made to the effect that the project was more costly than if steel and concrete were used.

The works in New Gouma were practically paralysed in a few weeks and during the following months the process passed through the different official De­partments, representing the start of a slow agony which has continued up until the present.

Meanwhile, Hassan Fathy did his best to defend the project but it was useless. Bureaucracy let the New Gouma project die; nevertheless, the problem existing with the rural housing and the message

left by Fathy are still today absolutely valid, not just in Egypt but probably also in three quarters of the world.

Urbanism is a very complex matter and operates on a large scale; massive and cheap housing projects form a part of it. The technical and economical aspects represent a small part of the total. The real problem goes further and includes systems and persons, both professional and laymen. As Fathy said: "The satisfac­tion produced when solving architectural problems is similar to that enjoyment you feel climbing a mountain, but to cooperate with bureaucracy is like wad­ing through an artificial lake; it just des­troys the soul". Actually, after so many years of urbanistic abuses, we continue with vanity attempting to apply "mod­els" of cities based on experiences and theories which in many cases are far re­moved from our culture and of course from that of the user.

Without a doubt, a concern for con­trolling and establishing parameters that would aid in defining a new order for the cities of our grandchildren certainly exists already; ordinances and norms, perhaps more than we can possibly assimilate, or hope to carry out, are totally lacking in ingenuity and naturalness; in disaccord of course with the creative process, and in any event far from reflecting the pecu­liarities and aspirations of future dwellers.

"Construction is a creative activity in which the decisive moment is the instant at which conceptualisation occurs; it is the moment at which the spirit takes shape and virtually all the characteristics of the new creation are determined. The features of a living being are forged at the time of fertilisation; those of a building are determined by a complex series of decisions made by all those involved in the project at each stage, so that the in­stant of conception, during which time the final form is developed and converted into a living thing which is the building, is a multiplicity of such instants where each one assumes an important role in the total creative process."

HASSA N FATHY

Are we truly convinced that our ordi­nances and norms contemplate senti­ments such as those that brought Fathy to plan New Gouma? Do they guarantee that these new cities are truly human?

Li stening t o T radition The honesty of Hassan Fathy, of his char­acter, in harmony with his way of think­ing, at each step; the honesty also of a work undertaken without making a false step and without reservations, false pride, or any of the signs that today architects like to insert in their works; a code that only they understand. Honesty in their ideas, in their procedures and commit­ments, honesty in the results obtained.

The architecture of Hassan Fathy that is understood on the basis of its form, acquires a true meaning that is derived from the cultural and ethnic ambience to which it lends itself There exists an inti­mate union between the houses that Fathy built with the user in mind. Abs­ence of protagonism, obsession with not going further than what is strictly neces­sary, hiding behind the work, concealing the signature of the author.

When we analyse a building of Fa thy, it is not the architecture itself that assumes a relevant role, but rather we could say that it is the hand of the architect which has known how to maintain itself dis­creetly aloof, allowing the materials to act subtly. The proportions, the 'chiaros­curo', all of it without high notes, in such a way as to permit these factors to assume their true force.

The contribution of the architect in this case is that of affording in a sensible fashion a series of elements whose value was implicit in their natural state. The warm feeling that is produced before a wall that is not there, a brick wall, a vault ...

"I knew that I was looking at living architecture", Fathy recalls, "surviving within the realm of Egyptian traditions, a way of building that naturally suggests the landscape, an integral pa�t of the con­struction, as well as the palm trees found in the region. It was like a vision of archi-

38

tecture before the fall of mankind, before the invention of money, industry, avar­ice, and the pretension that separated arc ­hitecture from its true roots in nature."

During those years in which current fashions made reinforced concrete a popular building tool in Egypt, Fathy opted for the traditional method of con­structing walls and vaults made of adobe for his buildings, beginning in that way an attitude coherent with tradition.

"The adobe dwellings with vaulted roofs, aside from being inexpensive, are also attractive; they cannot avoid being so, since the structure dictates the forms and the material imposes the scale; each line respects the distribution of forces and the building adopts forms that prove to be self-satisfying and natural".

Fathy had confidence in this return to constructive tradition, as the only means of successfully bringing about the great plans for extensive construction projects in his country: By employing the inhabi­tants themselves for building their own houses, for obtaining in this way cheap labour and at the same time by providing jobs for unqualified workers that would never have been able to participate in projects calling for reinforced concrete.

Moreover, the use of traditional mate­rials and techniques was a guarantee that the new settlements would conform to the Egyptian landscape and to the type of tribal and rural society to which they are committed.

Wood is another of the materials re­claimed. With respect to the material and the way it was worked, a series of crafts almost forgotten forever were restored and now flourish again.

"Materials are neither good nor bad; it is a question of the use to which they are put. By using them coherently, we can achieve their spiritualisation, " Fathy be­lieves.

He attempts to provide a rational basis for his work as regards his resources and the cultural context for all of the processes involved in the inhabitable building. Thus, he was concerned with taking

'�'--------

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;;.Wl;;\,ittl,. - !iAl1� r··:) �,.(;..

Master plan of Town Centre,

Cultural center in Luxor: "Man is the measure",

Beyo nd the Nile

39

advantage of the resources that nature provided him with, for protecting his houses from the severe conditions of the desert. He then conceived of several sys­tems of ventilation, based on chimneys that created drafts or air currents which were fed through wet carbon filters that served to paliate the dryness of the en­vironment. He also reinstituted the idea of using ceramic ovens to heat rooms through adobe walls in public buildings.

The Road to School In the life of Hassan Fathy, there exists a concrete fact which, according to his own testimony made manifest in his book, Architecture Jar the Poor, had a pro­found influence on him as an architect and as a person. The anecdote occurs

Public School ill Fares.

HASSAN FATHY

when he was in his twenties. Fathy was then a young architect who had recently graduated from the Poly technical School of Cairo. The students studying architec­ture in Egypt at that time received an academic training marked by a vague spirit of bea/lx arts. We can imagine the kind of ideas that ran through the mind of this young architect when he was cal­led upon to build a school in Talkla, for a small agrarian community inhabited by impoverished farmers.

We do not know the plans for that school, but it would be impossible to discover in this early work the character­istic traces of subsequent undertakings. Young Fathy had lived completely de­void of any contact with agricultural communities in his country (which rep-

resented a relatively high percentage of the Egyptian population), and he had been bred on imported canons or pre­cepts that were impossible to apply to that poor social environment. According to his own words, he later wrote, "the land for the school was outside of the village itself, and after a day or two, I deliberately avoided the village, as I could not stand the smells or the view of the narrow streets, full of mud and all sorts of fetid things, where the garbage from the kitchens was discarded together with the dirty water, fish scales, rotten veget­ables and all other wastes. It was also extremely depressing for me to visit the miserable stalls with their particular odours and full of flies, where poor wares were offered for sale to poor passers-by".

id I i :1 II

_ ........ '-1 ... 1 r�- __ . J c:-- _

II J!

Plall. c. 1957.

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The vision of that village, the way of life of those farmers that did not know anything nor wish to know anything, meant for Hassan Fathy the unexpected fact that soon he would truly open his eyes and witness the latent reality that he had always ignored. He then realised that he was not planning for others but rather for himself; he knew that the school had been conceived of for the purpose of satisfying his own stylistic tastes, rather than for housing half-naked children from the village: From then on, Hassan Fathy began to work on behalf of others and he erected structures that took into account the traditions, culture and climate in which people were immersed.

Hassan Fathy is neither a prophet nor a . romanticist, his attitude is absolutely valid today. The road that he chose to follow for creating architecture is neither ancient nor modem, but simply in accordance with the times and the place in which he found himself And his work confirms this fact.

In closing, we wish to express our appreciation to the architect, Hassan Fathy, for the successive talks that took place at his home in Cairo, prior to the writing of this article. He demonstrated a capacity for awakening in us a great in­terest and inquisitiveness for his ideas and his work. We also wish to thank the Mexican architect, Vicente Armendariz; the Egyptian architect, Samir Y ouseff; the Egyptian journalist, Mohamed Oda; and finally the engineer Geri Andreoli, for the support they have lent us, either directly or indirectly.

Works cited: Architecture for the Poor, Hassan Fathy (Mexican edition). Hassatl Fath}', A Mimar Book, 1985.

Conversations held by the authors of this articles with Hassan Fathy in Cairo.

The photographs and plans are repro­duced from Hassall Fath}', A Mimar Book, published by Concept Media,

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Singapore, 1985. Ka'a.

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